Saturday, March 17, 2007

Blond, 38 year old part time stewardess Lisa Robertson only had eyes for film star Ralph Fiennes as he settled himself in seat K2 on Quantas QF 123, for the 9 hour flight out of Darwin for Mumbai late in January this year.

After breaking company rules and sharing a crew jump seat, they then shared a toilet some for some unprotected and no doubt uncomfortable sex in the toilet. They then shared a more comfortable hotel bed in India for more protracted (and protected) action .

Which is just as well for Ralph tells us, that Ms Robertson, 38, has now been fingered as a worker at the Sydney brothel "Stiletto" and that after being sacked by Quantas she had to take up an extra shift at another brothel "The Gateway Club" to help pay the rent. She used the alias "Skye". Ho.Ho.Ho.

The Stiletto is a brothel on Paramatta Road Camperdown, (and has a very stylish website) owned by Eddie "The Prince" Hayson - Oz's most famous gambler and Sydney underworld figure and convicted drug importer, Harry Lahood.

Ms. Robertson is registered bankrupt after racking up A$500,000 in legal bills after losing a negligence case brought by her previous employers. The Police.

Meanwhile only last week Ralph was upsetting the staff and visitors of the Hotel Tuilerieen in Bruges frolicking buck nekked in the hotel pool with four undressed female companions. Bruges has of course awonderful nearly nekked Pieta in the Cathedral by Michaelangelo. (no relation)

Sally Clark had a brief and unhappy life. The daughter of a Divisional Commander of South Wiltshire police, a lawyer with a large and prestigious Manchester law firm, her first two children died within months of their birth and she was threatened with having her third child taken from her.

She was initially charged with her husband for murdering her first 2 children. Charges were subsequently dropped against her husband and she faced alone, a trial for their murder. She was found guilty and spent 3 years in prison.

She has now been found dead at the age of 42, the circumstances of which will no doubt become clear in the near future.

BBC (and other news reports) have been endlessly been relaying misinformation about Sally Clark, her trial and subsequent and successful appeal. There are two major points to be made.

1. The BBC have, since the news broke reported that the prosecution displayed her as a weak minded drunk. This is a lie and is based on a complete ignorance of what happened at the trial.

In a curious agreement approved by the judge, the jury were denied hearing anything about Sally Clark's alcoholism, binge drinking .... or evidence concerning her character. Julian Bevan QC, for the Dwefence, that ornament of the Bar, who never met his cleint before the trial, traded with Robin Spencer QC for the prosecution in pre-trial hearings, silence on the alcohol problems Sally had suffered, which it was agreed had no direct bearing on the case, with an agreement not to introduce character witnesses for Sally. The world of high pay, high pressure solicitors who charge hundreds of pounds per day for their time, expertise and legal and technical skills, where taking half bottles of vodka to work and slipping out to Marks & Spencer for gin and tonic mixer drinks is outside most newspaper reader's experience.

At the conclusion of the trial, when the jury had returned their verdict of guilty, the judge allowed Robin Spencer QC who led the prosecution to announce that Sally Clark had received treatment at the Priory Hospital for alcohol problems. This had been revealed when Police found receipts for payment for the treatment when searching their house, long before amy charges had been laid.

This led of course to the publication the following day of an orgy of stores which had long been circulating in those bars in Manchester where the demi-monde of the legal profession, policemen and journalists slake their thirsts and swap gossip.

The Sunday Mirror: “Fall from grace for the woman with everything;” the Daily Mail, “Driven by drink and despair, the solicitor who killed her babies;” Manchester Evening News: “Pregnant days after murdering baby son.” ,”Baby killer was 'lonely drunk” headlined the Daily Telegraph were typical press reaction unleashed by the gratuitous and unecessary post trial revelation of Robin Spencer QC.

Quite how the jury reacted to the failure of the accused to provide a single character witness in forming a judgement about her it is impossible to determine (they voted 10-2 so 2 thought her inoccent) ... it certainly did not help her case. The subsequent Press coverage removed any doubts the public may have had about her guilt.

Paradoxically BBC news and Press reports the many and glowing reports, and support by family and friends - support her lawyers excluded from her trial in a grubby deal between the lawyers and with the collusion of the Judge.

2. BBC news and other reports persist in their hounding of Professor Meadow and his illusory statistics about child deaths. His evidence had negligible effect on the appeal at which the prosecution stated it ..."no longer seeks to uphold these convictions… The Crown does not seek a retrial”

The 2nd appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice on January 28th 2003, before Lord Justice Kay (now dead) (led by Claire Montgomery QC of the famous Matrix Chambers - the defence team having sensibly ditched Julian Bevan QC) was brief and related entirely to a single point.

During the trial there had been a most remarkable intervention in the proceedings by the jury.

On being recalled to give evidence during the trial Dr Alan Williams (pic), a Home Office consultant forensic pathologist was asked to answer questions about blood samples taken from the body of Harry (the second child to die) in a written question submitted by the jury he said “…the chemistry of blood is so unreliable after death as to be of no diagnostic value…”. Of the post mortem blood sample “…it was submitted for toxicological examination and would have been sent for viral studies”.

It was the jury who had penetrated the obfuscating fog of legal terms, medical terminology, and pedantic process. It was these 12 peers, good and true, who identified the simple clear need to answer a simple clear question. A question they framed in writing and presented to the judge. Harry died, blood samples were taken, what did they show?

Faced with this clear simple question, Dr Alan Williams, produced a simple response. He lied.

Cross examined by the defence, Williams claims that the appropriate microbiology reports had been provided to the prosecution (and therefore available under disclosure to the defence). This was untrue. It was a lie. It was a point that Julian Bevan QC failed to pursue. It was this bald faced lie that led to her eventual release from prison and acquittal. Claire Montgomery's appeal notes are available (30 pages Word) the the first 2 paras cover the discovery of the medical reports showing infection in Harry. The 3rd para states;

"This is a clear case of non disclosure by the prosecution. This non disclosure has caused a serious miscarriage of justice. "

Invited to the appeal to explain, Dr Williams failed to show up. Collapse of case. Prisoner acquitted and released.

The truth was, of course revealed after 2 years of terrier like digging and pestering of statisticians, pathologists and paediatricians by her devoted and unswervingly faithful husband Steve Clark and legal defence team.

On Monday 11th February 2002 the 1998 post mortem microbiology report on Harry eventually surfaces from Macclesfield Hospital. It is reviewed by leading pathologists who say that the evidence of 8 sites of Staphylococcus aureus infection in Harry's corpse and the presence of polymorphs within the cerebrospinal fluid show that Harry's death was caused by overwhelming staphylococcal infection and that no other cause of death can be sustained (this presence of infection by SA was known by Dr Wiliiams in February 1998). It later emerges that these samples had been sent at the time to the national reference forensic laboratory at Colindale for further testing. The significance of Dr Williams remarks in answer to the jury's apparently innocent question at the trial about post mortem blood results become crystal clear.

Robin Spencer QC for the Prosecution, probably fingering his collar and raising a degree of sweat on his noble brow addressed the Court...

“My Lords, Dr Williams has decided not to appear as a witness…and the prosecution no longer seeks to uphold these convictions… The Crown does not seek a retrial” (Dr Williams was subsequently banned by the GMC from Home Office pathology work for 3 years but allowed to continue to work as a consultant histopathologist - it also became apparent that Dr Williams had known about Harry's infection since February 1998 but did not tell lawyers in the case and justified this by claiming that he thought the infection was post mortem contamination.)

Later a written report was presented by Justice Kay which dealt with the evidence of Professor Meadows...

."…The statistic 1: 73 million is clearly inadmissible in law, could not have failed to mislead the jury, and should have never been allowed in evidence… Sufficient in itself to make these convictions unsafe. Dr Williams is responsible for failing to disclose a material document, which must have affected the outcome of the trial and is a serious matter. The appeal is allowed with costs. There will be no retrial.”

Whilst the laboratory results might explain the death of Harry they do not of course explain the death of Christopher but made the conviction unsafe.

Professor Meadow's (pic) statistics were never challenged by the gilded mind of Julian Bevan, QC - which it was his duty to challenge - he didn't , through ignorance, torpidity, whoknows? His silence on the matter could reasonably be interpreted by the Jury as acceptance of the truth of Meadow's false statement. We have an adversarial system , for good or ill, and Bevan and his team failed in his job of obtaining opinion (which was not difficult to find) to contradict his amateur statistical claims. It helped to seal Sally Clark's fate.

Curiously the supporters of Sally Clark have conducted a ceaseless and vurulent campaign (almost a witchunt) against Professor Meadow's through the GMC and the Courts - there hasn't been a whisper about Sally Clark's incompetent lawyers. Meadow's has the support of the vast bulk of his professional colleagues, he has advanced the knowledge and understanding of why parents, especially mothers killed their babies.

The matter however has however not been allowed to rest there .... The murders were imaginary, apparently the faulty construct of blinkered and obtuse and elderly experts, their apparent causes illusory, the consequences unimaginable to any parent. The capacity the of medical forensic profession for increasing the population of imaginary murders was not however stilled. Earlier, Professor David Southall had seen a Channel 4 programme concerning the Clark case, he was a colleague of Professor Meadow. He prepared a report which he submitted to the Police on the basis of seeing the programme, stating that Steven Clark, the father, had been involved in the death of his 2 children. This bizarre allegation which he refused to retract, and was repeated to the GMC Professional Conduct Committee was judged on June 5th 2004 by the General Medical Council , they ruled that Prof Southall acted in a manner that was “inappropriate”, “irresponsible” and “misleading” in compiling a report outlining his accusations and concerns.

Subsequently on August 7th he was found found guilty of serious professional misconduct after accusing solicitor Sally Clark's husband of murdering their children.

It is one of the many mysterious aspects of this case, that Mr Clark has never sued Profesor Southall, for what is undoubtedly a gross and serious libel.

For those interested in informing thermselves further about this case should read the partial (as distinct from impartial) account of the trial by a childhood friend of Sally Clark and her family, and solicitor John Batt which Sally Clark helped to write - although it is unclear where Batt ends and Clark begins in the narrative.

As the only published account of the whole trial this book is invaluable to understanding the case of Sally Clark and her troubled life - in which the actions and decisions of powerful "professional" men have played such an important and tragic part.

On June 5, 2005 -- Colonel Ted Westhusing 44 was found dead in his trailer at Camp Dublin in Baghdad. At the time, he was the highest-ranking American soldier to die in Iraq. The Army's Criminal Investigation Command report on Westhusing's death explained it as a "perforating gunshot wound of the head and Manner of Death was suicide."

A handwritten note in block capitals was found near his body and its contents have just been released ....

Thanks for telling me it was a good day until I briefed you. Petraeus -- You are only interested in your career and provide no support to your staff -- no msn [mission] support and you don't care. I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied -- no more. I didn't volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. I trust no Iraqi. I cannot live this way. All my love to my family, my wife and my precious children. I love you and trust you only. Death before being dishonored any more. Trust is essential -- I don't know who trust anymore. [sic] Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs [commanders]. You are not what you think you are and I know it.

COL Ted Westhusing

Life needs trust. Trust is no more for me here in Iraq.

More about Ted here from Robert Lindsay , a Wayne Madsen report from Jan 2006 suggests his death was not suicide and gives details of murky dealing by the Carlyle Group which Ted had been exploring.

Robert Bryce I am Sullied-No MoreThe Texas Observer March 9th 2007"The disillusion that killed Ted Westhusing is part of the invoice that America will be paying long after the United States pulls its last troops out of Iraq."

This is an article pointed to by commentator Dick Durata for which we are grateful .. we retain a close interest in General Petraeus - Go here for previous comments on the General and his role in winning the war (?) in Iraq.

Friday, March 16, 2007

The curiously named Bing Futch @ "What the Futch" has a post about Google that will make you pause.

He points you at I, Cringley, with an article dated January 19th When Being a Verb is Not Enough: Google wants to be YOUR Internet.

" .....I spoke recently with an old friend who is a bandwidth broker. He buys and sells bandwidth on fiber-optic networks around the world. And he told me something that I found not completely surprising, but I certainly hadn't known: Google controls more network fiber than any other organization. This is not to say that Google OWNS all that fiber, just that they control it through agreements with network operators. I find two very interesting aspects to this story: 1) that Google has acquired -- or even needs to acquire -- so much bandwidth, and; 2) that they don't own it, since probably the cheapest way to pick up that volume of fiber would be to simply buy out any number of backbone providers like Level 3 Communications."

...............

"There are two aspects to this control issue, but let's take the legal one first. If Google bought a bunch of Internet backbone providers, such a move would of course get the attention of regulators from the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the two federal agencies charged with looking at large corporate mergers for signs of anti-competitive activity. But simply acquiring legal control of those same assets through leases and other long-term contracts doesn't trigger such an examination, though perhaps it should. By renting instead of buying, Google was able to acquire its fiber assets primarily in secret. The game was over before most of us even knew there WAS a game."

..........................

"I live in South Carolina, a state that I can argue qualifies as a technology backwater despite being the shrimp and grits capital of the world. Why, then, are the local business pages filled with stories about Google preparing to build massive data centers here? Google is apparently negotiating to build data centers in Goose Creek, a town not far from Charleston, where I live, in Columbia, the state capital, and a third location across the border in Georgia. To read the papers, Google might choose one or another of these locations, but according to people I have spoken with who are fairly close to the action, Google actually seems intent on building in all three locations.

Why?

Why would Google need two data centers in a state with only four million residents? Why would they need to buy 520 acres in a Goose Creek industrial park when that's probably 100 times as much land as any conceivable data center would require?

Google is building a LOT of data centers. The company appears to be as attracted to cheap and reliable electric power as it is to population proximity. In Goose Creek they bought those 520 acres from the local state-owned electric utility, which probably answers the land question posed above. By buying out all the remaining building sites in an industrial park owned by an electric utility, Google guarantees itself a vast and uninterruptible supply of power, much as it has done in Oregon by building a data center next to a hydroelectric dam or back here again in Columbia by building near a nuclear power station. "

read on.....

Billy Girlado has some interesting comments on the same topic and on the way Google Blog Search has blown away Technorati with an interesting graph from Hitwise.

Aluminum giant Alcoa, which had sold the Mount Holly Commerce Park property to Maguro Enterprises, declined to comment on the sale Wednesday.

Santee Cooper, the state-owned utility that generates power for the area, said that it is 'legally obligated' to not discuss what is planned for the site.

Berkeley County Electric Cooperative, which would transmit electricity to the property, also declined to comment.

A newly formed entity named Maguro Enterprises paid nearly $17 million for about 520 acres in Mount Holly Commerce Park off U.S. Highway 52, between Goose Creek and Moncks Corner, Berkeley County property records show. Some of the documents in that deal were notarized in Santa Clara County, Calif., an area that includes the Silicon Valley headquarters of many high-tech companies, including Google Inc.

The name Maguro seems to have now been switched to Pyrite LLC. Pyrite plans to make a US$750 Mn. investment and employ at least 400 workers earning an average of $90,000 a year, said Berkeley County Supervisor Jim Rozier.

Pigeon racing from Western Europe will still be subject to the existing conditions on domestic races of notifying in advance, record keeping and biosecurity. There will be a new and additional requirement for all returning birds to be kept in isolation from other birds for 7 days. Birds should also be regularly inspected for signs of disease - which is standard loft practice. Advice on controls for kept birds is available here.

A snap Lord Patel took of Idi Amin and its his beautiful wife in February 1972 in front of the Brandenburger Gate, Berlin. Amine, the Ugandan Light Heavyweight boxing champion 51-60, Sandhurst educated was the first colored soldier in Uganda to become an officer.

Brigadier Pierino Okoya, the deputy chief of the army and Amin's sole rival among senior army officers and his wife are shot dead at their home January 25th 1970.

He took power on 25th January 1971 in an Israeli backed coup d'etat in 1971 whilst pipe smoking President Milton Obote was out of the countryat the Commonwealth Conference in Singapore.

His first overseas trip as President is a state visit to Israel.

He embarked on a crazy journey of bloodletting, savagery and crafty biffonery ...nobody was spared, and one was immune from the murder squads. The chief justice, Benedicto Kiwanuka, was dragged from the High Court by soldiers and never seen again. The vice-chancellor of the University of Makerere, once the finest university in black Africa, disappeared. When Janan Luwuum, Uganda’s Anglican Archbishop, spoke out against the reign of terror, Amin publicly denounced him. The archbishop’s bullet-riddled body, still in ecclesiastical robes, was later dumped in a Kampala mortuary. Amin also killed and dismembered Kay, the feistiest of his many wives, and dumped her remains in the boot of the car of her lover, who was also killed.

After ejecting the Asians, the economy goes in free fall and over 300,000 are killed by Amin. Amin invades Tanzania in 1978 and the invading Tanzanian forces take Kampala on 11 April 1979. Amin flees to Libya, taking his four wives, several of his 30 mistresses and about 20 of his children.

Besides a huge death toll, Amin has left Uganda with an annual inflation rate of 200%, a national debt of US$320 million, an agricultural sector in tatters, closed factories and ruined businesses.

He dies in exile in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia 16th August 2003.

Mugabe is way up there with him, 250,000 Matabele were killed were killed nu imported North Korean mercenaries. No-one dare calculate the killings today as hundreds of thousands have fled to surroundings countries.

.... and let's not even mentionthe ranch owned by Prince Harry's girlfriends family, Charles Davy ans his beautiful daughter Chelsey just back from the beach at Acapulco and recovering fro her Rand 250,000 21st. birthday bash - the old Justin von Leibig place, the man who invented the OXO cube - twice the size of Surrey where safari mad Americans kill tethered animals. NO, we won't mention that .. but you can read about it here

We won't mention Mengistu the Dictator and Butcher of Ethiopia, spirited out by the Americans to Kampala who is the architect of Operation Murambatsvina (Shona for "drive out the filth") in which the police and army destroyed shanty towns and cracked down on unlicensed traders after Mugabe decreed that they needed to be forcibly "re-ruralised" to regain their peasant roots... and who have diappeared off the face of the earth.... also Operation Maguta ( which in the double speak of the double ungood means "live well", prompted by a shortfall in maize production since the white owned and run commercial farms were destroyed. Maguta means villagers on communal land are compelled by Army thugs them to grow maize and sorghum, which they must then sell to the army-run Grain Marketing Board(GMB)

Ali al-Fadhily, in Electronic Iraq, 15 March 2007 has an interesting article about the failed Government of Iraq entitled "Iraqis place hope in local politics" which includes a very interesting note ....

Rumors run of "shadow governments" being formed abroad, but Iraqis have little faith in people who fled and left them to face the situation.

General Nizar al-Khazraji, former chief of staff in the previous army, former minister for foreign affairs Naji al-Hadithi (see pic) and some others are said to have formed such 'governments' abroad to replace the current government when the time comes.

Today is of course the grim anniversary of the day when the Iraqi Army under the command of General Nizar al-Khazraji bombed Halabja (BBC Caversham monitoring report) with cyanide gas - the man who the BBC went to Copenhagen to interview in September 2002, the man who the CIA got excited about as the successor to Saddam. And he has raised his head.

Naji Sabri Al-Hadithi, 59 was of course the Foreign Minister of Saddam's regime who stole US$15 Mn from the Foreign Ministry's treasury before Bagdhad fell. He smuggled it with him abroad, according to the Austrian Der Standard newspaper at the time . The newspaper quoted the Foreign Ministry's workers in Baghdad, as saying that the sum confiscated by Al-Hadithi was transported abroad on April 7, before the US entered Baghdad.

Al-Hadithi might currently be with his friend, the far-rightist leader Joerg Haider, in southern Austria, said the newspaper." The newspaper also said his mobile phone is registered in the name of a member of the Iraqi embassy in Vienna. (see BBC Online report)

Jorg Haider told Lord Patel at the time that "He is in safety." The former leader of the far-right Freedom Party and Governer then of Carinthia also told the radio station Krone Hit, describing Mr Sabri as a "personal friend". "He has good connections the world over. We don't need to worry about him," he said. Naji Sabri was made Iraqi Ambassador to Austria in 1998 where he gotto know Haider. He was also named as Permanent Representative to the International AtomicEnergy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations Industrial DevelopmentOrganization (UNIDO) and to the United Nations Office (Vienna) during1999-2001. He was only made Foreign Minister on Augest 4, 2001.

There is a fascinating report by BBC's Mark Doyle of interviews that he had with Naji Sabri in Cairo dated March 29th 2003."The invaders" , he proceeded to say with absolute certainty,..." will be beaten. They will die and be buried in the deserts of Iraq."

It is intriguing to remember that there were 3 prominent Iraqi ministers also do not appear on the list of 55 most wanted after the occupation who appeared on those ridiculous playing cards.

There is a report from October 2002 by BBC monitoring at Caversham that he was "Described by commentators as "smooth and sophisticated", "suave" and"a type that appeals to Westerners", he is said to have relished his renewed contact with the West." He was also said to be CIA director George Tenet's "source who had direct access to Saddam and his inner circle." He politely but firmly declined the oportunity to defect however.

A PBS report in 2002 states he is a member of a historically powerful family, and holds a doctorate in English literature from Baghdad University. During the Gulf War, he was Deputy Information Minister and, at one time, ran Iraq's Press office in London.

In the days immediately prior to the illegal invasion of Iraq when Tony Blair had accepted that Saddam could leave the country unharmed - Naji Sabra said..."(BBC)

"The only option [to avoid war] is the departure of the number one warmonger in the world [US President George W Bush]. "His policy has brought disaster to the United States. This crazy man should go and also his subject, disciple and follower [UK Prime Minister Tony] Blair."

OF course it seems unlikely that the Coalition of the totally useless and fed up would engage the services of General Nizar al-Khazraji and Naji al-Hadithi, but as we are never tired of hearing ..."My enemies enmy is my friend".. the very recent accomodation with a tribal leader in Anbar suggests that there sre some forces at play to give the Sunni a stronger hand.

“I was concerned to hear about these reports and asked for them to be investigated. It is clear that general al-Khazraji did indeed have an appalling record of human rights abuses in Iraq. For this reason, the Government’s only interest in General al-Khazraji is to see him brought to justice. We continue to support the efforts underway in Iraq to establish a fair and transparent system for prosecuting those suspected of human rights abuses under Saddam.“The reports of General al-Khazraji’s association with the Iraqi Government appear to be the result of unfounded media speculation in the region. We have seen no evidence of any connection between General al-Khazraji and the Iraqi Government.

We have reason to believe that, far from working in support of the Iraqi Government, General Khazraji is actively engaged in opposing it.”

So it would be strange, funny even, if these guys popped up in the Government of Iraq ... but it wouldn't be unexpected.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Tom Griffin at the Green Ribbon has long kept an eye on Tim Spicer. 2 soldiers under his command in Ulster shot an unarmed teenage father of two in the back, killing him. The soldiers were tried, convicted of murder, and imprisoned for life. However, as part of a very murky deal at the time of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the soldiers were released. Spicer successfully argued for their return to their unit.

Tom points us to a write up about this gun for hire , an ex British soldier (and officer) , gun runner, money launderer, liar, by an ex CIA liar, Robert Baer, in this month's Vanity Fair

To those who have followed the intermeshing careers of the Lady Dame Pauline Neville Jones Fan Club , the RUSC, Erinys, Executive Outcomes and all the other oozing shite that lives in the shadows of megolamaniac and murderous statesmen, like Blair, Bush (es) Cheney, Chalabi, this is an ane old song. It gets no better with the telling.

For those interested, Bill Roggio the Voice of the CIA over at The 4th Rail is now running a company Public Multimedia, Inc, ("a non-profit media company" Ho.Ho.Ho.) that arranges the "embedding" of reporters with US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Helping of course to provide an independent and balanced view of what is happening in Iraq.

A recent such example was by Chris Muir , author of the beautifully drawn but dire and unfunny Night and Day cartoon strip. His visit to Iraq adds nothing to our understanding and the photographs could have been taken in Flint. His site does have a good FREE Pammy Anderson video ... if your taste in breast runs to the the Chicken' Lickin' kind.

Maryland born , Richie Anderson, 35 was an NFL running back with 13 seasons under his belt with the New York Jets and Dallas Cowboys. He was a 2000 Pro Bowl selection with the Jets and holds the team record of 305 by a running back for receptions. He retired from playing with the Cowboys due to a neck injury in 05 and last season was assistant wide reciever coach with the Jets.

Georgia born, Ken Whisenhunt, 45 the Arizona Cardinals new head coach on a 4 year contract (salary US$2.5 Mn - enough to buy a US $1.85 million home in south Chandler, AZ.) , hired Anderson as wide receivers coach in January. His wife and 2 children had hardly settled in and he hadn't been in the job 4 weeks and at about 9:30 p.m. March 8th he was stopped for soliciting for prostitution.. The Phoenix POlice department's vice unit was conducting an undercover sting operation in south Phoenix when Anderson allegedly solicited an officer posing as a prostitute - the "cop as a ho trick ". If charged with solicitation for prostitution which is a Class 1 misdemeanor in Arizona he could end up with six months in prison and a $2,500 fine.

4 days later Whisenhunt fired him.

Pity he wasn't a nice rich, white college boy playing lacrosse... just think, if they sacked every player / staff member in the NFL who chased hookers .....

Is That a Stick Shift or Are You Just Glad to See Me?

A different result to the case of Joe Cullen, a Detroits Lions coach. Jethro Lett, a shift manager at a Wendy's restaurant , told police that a buck nekkid man wheeled through the drive-up window and ordered food. Cullen was hauled in on indecency and obscenity charges. Faced with 30 days in the slammer or a US$500 fine he paid up.

Days later the Police hauled him again (fully clothed this time) and a breath test determined his blood-alcohol content was .12, over the legal limit of 0.8. originally charged with drunken driving which was reduced to DUI.

He got 2 years probation and must attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings ( fully clothed) twice a week... pay US$300 court costs and he kept his job.

There is a school of thought that the only indecent thing about the Lions, is the way they are playing - they have the worst record in the league over the past 5 years. Probably because the coach is permanently pissed or waving his dick around, running down Dearborn Avenue.

Joe of course is a WHITE guy.

Maybe there is a place for Richie in Detroit.... he can only help improve their performance.

So in the Mother of Parliaments we have had a massive Parliamentary debate about Trident, Nuclear weapons, proliferation ..."which we are all working towards" etc ....

Duringthe whole debate nobody mentioned the one nation that hasn't, and won't sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The nation that has a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. The nation who took a man who exposed their nuclear arsenal and put him in solitary confinement for 20 years. A nation that has such territorial ambitions that it will not state what it's borders are. A nation that is building an Apartheid state behind 45 foot concrete walls. A nation that kills civilians, men, women, children on a regular and casual basis.

Israel.

A nation that murdered Rachael Corrie (23) on March 16th 4 years ago by crushing her with a bulldozer.

Also remember Tom Hurndall (22) murdered on April 11 2003 by an IDF soldier with a single shot to the head.

.... or the many, many thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes, killed, starved, and caged in the Gaza prison by that Israeli state and it's willing citizens.

It was with some relief that my new Butler, Mc Ternan told me at breakfast that PC Plod had telephoned with the good news that the mystery of my car stolen last year had been resolved.

Apparently a Mr Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, well known as the evil mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, confessed ,(amongst many other crimes) according to a transcript released by the Pentagon yesterday after a military hearing held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He also confessed to a string of other offences and asked them to be taken into account . This included the theft of and from Patel Towers of an expensive British Racing Green Aston Martin Vantage in full "Prince of Wales" spec.

Mr. Mohammed declined to speak under oath, saying his religious beliefs prohibited it. But he said he was telling the truth. Which apparently means ( explained Plod ) that whilst this can be credited against the crime as a Class IIIa Clear up, proceedings cannot be entered into, solely on the basis of a confession based on illegal abduction, rendition and ceaseless torture without the presence of a lawyer.

Butler McTernan, , appears a bright lad (although his references look slightly dodgy) , and took the opportunity to point out to Plod that the vehicle was stolen last year and it appears from reading the press that Mr Mohammed was arrested in Rawalpindi on 2nd March 2003 and at the time of the offence was safely tucked up in a spacious cell at Camp Freedom on Diego Garcia.

"God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform" , was the response from the officer of the law, who then put the phone down.PS At the time of Mr Mohammed's arrest Ari Fleischer the White House press secretary said ."Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is one of Osama bin Laden's most senior and significant lieutenants, a key Al Qaeda planner and the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks," ... So it must be true.

You will find how Mystic Meg had been at work and safely predicted ...

"No one exemplifies the model of the terrorist entrepreneur more clearly than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,(see pic Chapter 5 Image 1 ) the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks. KSM followed a rather tortuous path to his eventual membership in al Qaeda.1 Highly educated and equally comfortable in a government office or a terrorist safehouse, KSM applied his imagination, technical aptitude, and managerial skills to hatching and planning an extraordinary array of terrorist schemes. These ideas included conventional car bombing, political assassination, aircraft bombing, hijacking, reservoir poisoning, and, ultimately, the use of aircraft as missiles guided by suicide operatives."

You will find much else besides which proves ... er...well .... he looks a right evil bastard.

UPDATE 16th March

Hans-Christian Ströbele,(PIC) (Deputy Leader of the Green Party) and Herta Däubler-Gmelin Charman of the Human Rights Committee of the Bundestag (Social Democrat, and Minister of Justice in the Gerhard Schröder government who was forced to resign when she compared George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler) both members of the German Bundestag have ridiculed Mohammed's portmanteau confession . Casting doubts on it's vailidity or credibility given the circumstances of his imprisonment. “He might as well have confessed to being the Satan himself”, "Er hätte wohl auch gestanden, der Satan persönlich zu sein" Ströbele told the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Däubler-Gmelin said, "Hier veröffentlicht eine Militärbehörde, was ihr passt",“The [U.S.] military authority publishes whatever it wants to publish.” They both mentioned the “torture factor” and the dubious status of the Guantanamo tribunal.

The SZ also quote Ruth and Judea Pearl from Encino, California saying of his claims to have killed their son Daniel."Zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt können wir unmöglich wissen, ob seine Prahlerei mit dem Tod unseres Sohnes der Wahrheit entspricht" .. We cannot posibly know after all this time that he is responsible for their son's death

Interesting view here at Rumour Mill that KSM is actually someone else, but someone provides evidence that that is probably untrue.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Her Maj's Ambassador to Ethiopia Robert Dewar has just made a statement.

"I am extremely relieved and happy, as are all of us at the Embassy, including DFID and the British Council, that our five friends and colleagues are safe and well."

"I am pleased to report that the five all seem to be in generally good health."

Press Office, Downing Street (West), London SW1A 2AL

Seeing that the Dame Lady Pauline Neville Jones Fan Club were called out en masse to root around 7 squillion miles of desert for the missing dips, it seems (to Lord Patel in his snug hideout) that their anonymity has been remarkably well preserved.

It would require an exceptionally disordered mind to begin, even to start to think that this wonderful desert holiday in the searing heat was quite the carefree break away from it all ,in the stuffy Embassy. Thank goodness they didn't take any children !

Perhaps they were just looking at salt pans and lots, and lots, and lots of sand. Or are we taking this with a pinch of salt pan ?

UPDATE Thursday night

Happily the anonymous adventurers are returned to the bosoms of their family and children - the press seemingly incapable of either naming them , getting a decent snap. or signing them up for "My Holiday in Hell in the hot salt pans on the Ethiopian Border" sories.

Environment Secretary David Miliband said on Channel 4 News about the Draft Climate Change Bill : 'With climate change we can't just close our eyes and cross our fingers. We need to step up our action to tackle it, building on our considerable progress so far. And time isn't on our side.

Crossing fingers ? Closing eyes ? ..is this the new Masonic signalling system ... is the sorely harassed Lord Levy .. the increasinly distant Sir Ian Blair and Dame Pauline Neville's Fan Club having an effect. Is he going mad ? Has he gone mad. This is serious but then .....

Ed Miliband (pic drumming up ideas), Minister for the Third Sector, said (apparently):

“To bring about genuine culture change we must foster greater understanding – particularly at local level – of the benefits third sector organisations can bring in delivering services that change people's lives for the better."

For more information about this programme or the OTS, please contact Campbell McDonald or Stephen Coomber on 020 7276 0317.

After 93 days , pissing away £20MN - no one has been convicted over the killing of Mr Musa, a 26-year-old father of two who suffered 93 injuries including fractured ribs, a broken nose and kidney failure during his detention.(pic of his father with pics of the family)

This result was entirely predictable.

How so?

Keen followers of the career of that ornament at the Bar, Julian Bevan QC were immediately alerted when he was chosen to lead the case for the prosecution. Their inoccence was assured.

So effective was he in making the case for the prosecution that when he had finished stating the case , Justice McKinnon threw out the case of five soldiers and that of Col. Jorge Emmanuel Mendonca, 43.

It was downhill all the way from there.

It was Julian Bevan, whose Rolls Royce mind missed the opportunity to expose the statistical fallacy of Professor Meadowcraft in the Sally Clark double infanticide case - which for an encore he also missed the purport of the question that the jury asked about the blood samples taken from the dead children. So sure of success was this gilded silk that he never even met his client - oerhpas if she had she might have sought other counsel.

It was this question, to which the paediatric pathologist Dr Williams lied, and to which he failed to appear to answer at the Appeal, when the case had been handed by a desperate defence to Claire Montgomery QC which finally sunk the case against Clark and led to her immediate release.

On December 10, 1996, businessman Richard Watson was murdered as he arrived home from work. The killer - ruthless, efficient, dressed in balaclava and jogging bottoms - shot him twice and then ran off. In April 1999 the case against his wife having procured a killer was due to start. It didn't. Within 30 minutes, the Crown case was aborted, on the advice of its leading counsel, Julian Bevan QC. The case had been dropped on the basis of information that had been available to the prosecution from January 24, 1997.

In November 2002 in the Court of Appeal, Robert Brown, one of Britain’s longest-serving prisoners, who had protested his innocence for 25 years was acquitted. Lord Justice Rose, with two other judges spent an hourconsidering the case and announced: "This verdict cannot be regarded as safe. We could not possibly be sure on what we have heard that the jury, had they known what we know, would have reached the same verdict. It is, to put it at its lowest, a possibility that they might have reached a quite different verdict."

The Scotsman reported at the time that within 18 minutes of the hearing starting at 10:30am on Wednesday November 13th 2002 , the Crown Counsel, Julian Bevan QC, was on his feet manfully explaining that he had no fight to fight. In legal terms he explained that he was, to all intents and purposes, throwing the towel in.

On the 15 January 2002 at the Court of Appeal took of Matlock's s conviction for murder was quashed after a sorry tale of lies, incompetence aStephen Downing's nd legal stupidity. Matthew Parris writing in the Times wrote, "For the Crown, Julian Bevan, QC, ....still managed to spend nearly an hour throwing in the towel. A kind of brow-furrowing bemusement hung over the public gallery as it slowly dawned on us that everyone - Crown, Defence and all three judges - agreed and had from the start. - They agreed not only that the conviction should be quashed, but on all the reasons why."

What finer man than Julian Bevan to present the Crown case if you wish to lose. The only problem now is Cpl Donald Payne, 35, of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, pleaded guilty to the charge at the start of a court martial to inhumanely treating Iraqi civilians....but was found inoccent of charges of manslaughter and perverting the course of justice.

Those further interested in the illustrious career of Julian Bevan might be interested in his role in supressing evidence in the M25 Murder case in 1993 before Justice Taylor.....here

A group of star silks are breaking away from Hollis Whiteman Chambers to launch the most significant new set since Matrix Chambers was formed in 2000. These will be based in Smithfield and bear the name of Cloth Fair Chambers.

Julian Bevan QC, Timothy Langdale QC John Kelsey-Fry QC, and leading juniors Richard Horwell and Ian Winter are all understood to be leaving together with tenants from other leading criminal sets, including Edmund Lawson QC of 9-12 Bell Yard.

The barristers have declared their bold intention to form a set comprised only of QCs and leading juniors, who will focus on private and high-cost work.

The departures coincide with management changes at Hollis Whiteman as it comes to terms with the implications of the proposed changes to legal aid funding proposed by Lord Carter of Cole in his recent legal aid procurement review.

This move coincides with the retirement after 50 years at the Hollis Chambers in the Temple of the legendary senior clerk Michael Greenaway. Nicholas Purnell QC previously of 23 Essex Street will head the chambers. Purnell acknowledges that the four most senior members of chambers - himself, Langdale, Lawson and Bevan - will at some point in the not-too-distant future be retiring.

Elsewhere the launch a new chambers focusing on high-value work has raised more than a few eyebrows (and hackles it seems) within the Inns of Court. Competitors said the establishment of the new set, Cloth Fair Chambers, smacked of arrogance: why should the seven assume that clients would pay more for their services?

Whatever befalls it, as one observer stated, “the list of founding members is full of enough talent to make a grown man cry.” Fraud and libel specialist John Kelsey-Fry QC’s (Winner of a Chambers Bar Award in this field) place at the very top of the criminal Bar is agreed by all. As one eminent peer stated: “Were I to find myself in some really serious trouble he is the only person I would have to represent me.” Julian Bevan QC is another renowned big hitter in the fraud arena. Superlative praise abounded for Timothy Langdale QC, who is considered by commentators to come second to very few. He is a favourite among solicitors and opposing counsel alike, as is Edmund Lawson QC, who was referred to as “quite simply the greatest.” “Fearless advocate” Nicholas Purnell QC is best known for the quality of his criminal fraud practice. He was commended to researchers for two qualities in particular: “He is not selfishly ambitious - he doesn’t care who he offends and will fight any argument regardless of the personal cost.” The “absolutely brilliant” Ian Winter QC has earned the greatest repute for his fraud work and it came as no surprise to anybody when he was appointed silk this year. High-profile prosecution work this year for Richard Horwell QC has included the Chohan murders. He too was appointed silk in 2006.

4. Israeli citizens are called upon to be especially cautious when visiting: Philippines, Turkey, Thailand, & Uzbekistan. (Sources: National Security Council Counter-Terrorism Division, GPO)."

Of no possible importance is public unveiling of the new Israeli made “Heron” Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) . This advanced new model can fly for 2 days at 30,000, night / daytime inall weathers carying a 250KG payload (older version 100Kg)

This, the 2nd largest UAV ever made has the most sophisticated intelligence-gathering equipment on the aircraft to provide better umanned capabilities in target location and carrying out surveillance. Satellite communication systems allow usage in long range operations as far away as Iran.

Daily Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that the Israeli ambassador to El Salvador for the last 6 months , Tzuriel Refael, 50 years old and single , was found by the residence Police unit in the back yard (some reports say he was in the street) of his residence naked, drunk, bound and gagged, it emerged Monday.

They report that policemen who guard the ambassador's residence found Refael with his hands tied, a rubber ball gag in his mouth and wearing sex toys. (See pic on right)

And why not ?

This is simply further evidence, if needed, that some sort of deviant sexual proclivity, whilst not essential for Israeli diplomatic staff, does help you get and keep the job.

In 2000, Israel's ambassador to France, Eliahu Ben - Elissar aged 68 was found in a hotel (Hotel Atala Champs Elysee) , a swanky 48 room palace in the most prestigious district of Paris -"All the 48 rooms are stylishly decorated and perfectly equipped".) under circumstances the Foreign Ministry refused to publicize and also under a woman who was not his wife at the time. His bodyguards had been stood down. Ben-Elissar served for 10 years in the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence agency, before embarking on a career in politics.

Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Ben-Elissar ambassador to the United States in 1996 and to France in 1998.

Naftali Tamir who represented the apartheid pariah state in sunny Oz told Haaretz that Israel and Australia are white sisters amid "the yellow race" of Asia and was recalled in October 2006.

Amir Laty, an Israeli diplomat was quietly expelled from Australia in 2004 which was blamed on his "close" friendship with the daughter of Federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock.

It was speculated in the Australian press that he was a Mossad handler of the three follwing agents ....

In the same year 3 Mossad agentsEli Cara, and Zev Barkan (who had diplomatic status when in Austria and Belgium and Uriel Kelman were run out of Australia. They had been detected stealing New zealand passports. Mossad had used a false Canadian passport in an attempt to assassinate a Palestinian leader in Jordan in 1997.

In 2005, Israel canceled the appointment of a diplomat to replace Amir Laity . It was a Aryeh Scher who was caught at the centre of a child sex scandal in Brazil five years ago. Aryeh Scher, was allegedly photographed in the nude with young girls. (see pic) He had previously been the Vice Consul (!) in Rio de Janierio - where he held parties with a Professor of Hebrew Georges Schteinberg involving (very) young girls. Read more here.

Between them they produced over 100 videos of children, countless photographs which were posted on 9 websites. Scher skipped the country and despite requests, extradition was refused. Arie Scher currently holds the office of first-secretary of the scientific and cultural department of the Ministry of Foreign affairs in Jerusalem.

In September 2005 Netherlands based Uriel Yitzhaki, 55 Israeli consul in the Hague, skipped the country after he was charged with issued 150 duplicate Israeli passports to people who were not entitled to them, in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars and other perks. The The Israeli business journal Globes Online and Haaretz reported he also "unlawful consensual sex" which means sex with a boy or girl aged 12 or younger, as the legal age of consent in the Netherlands is 13.

The head of the Israeli Defence Ministry Mission to Europe, David Dahan, was found dead in the Seine near Rouen in January , this was later described as a suicide although he left his mobile phone at home, and the tracker on his car had been disconnected.

ZAKA, a civilian team best known for its work recovering human remains at terror and accident sites in Israel, which was involved after 9/11 , and the Istanbul synagogue bombings in Istanbul sent a 10 man team to look for him when he went missing.

An Israeli diplomat, Yosef Sagiv Ofri,37 who worked in the Israeli Consulate was arrested on the 1st September 2006 in Atlanta GA on suspicion of computer related offences linked to pornography and the sexual exploitation of children. Ofri was accused of using emails and online messages to seduce a child from a suburb of Atlanta for "illegal acts relating to sodomy, aggravated sodomy, child molestation and aggravated child molestation."

The entangling cash for Coronets affair gets more bizarre every day. Surely if, (as is alleged) Truth Turner writes a memo which simply resides on her computer (or even that of her employer) it is copyright. A copyright which has very effectively been breached.

By whom this copyright has been breached it is difficult to determine because :

1. (it is alleged) She supplied a copy to her lawyers, (it is alleged)2. Plod were either supplied with a copy by her lawyers or (as is further alleged) or Plod's hired hackers retreived one (and maybe much else) from Downing Street data storage.3. A Judge in the High Court has disclosed details in the High Court in an action brought at the insistence of Plod and that ornament of the Bar , Lord Goldsmith.4. Maybe Truth has a copy wich has been mislaid (not the only thing in this complicated tale).5. Maybe her employer has the Copy. Right. ... and someone has throwin it in a trash can , elecronic or more corporeal.

These leaks / disclosures are now well and truly in the public domain - the intended recipient of this "letting of of steam" , Jonathan Powell, the guy in the next office, the fact that the fall other guy my Lord Levy, the perfumed and talented Labour Party Fun raiser attempted to seduce her - if only to tell lies, (rather than remove her clothing and lie down and think of Israel etc., ) .

We even know her contribution to what must now be seen as the modern Dreyfus Affair - the hounding of a Jew in public - commences (it is alleged) with the word "Fuck" - which seems an unlikely start for this pretty, pert, elfinesque and demure lady to utter.

In the Dreyfus affaire one must remember that much importance was attached to the notorious bordereau retrieved from the waste paper basket of the German military attache Major Max von Schwartzkoppen by an Alsatian cleaning lady (in the absence in those days of electronic hackers) who was employed by the French counter-intelligence to stoop to such low tricks. This bordereau (it was alleged) offered future and further access to secret French military information ..... however the handwriting was disputed and it was evident that it's secrets never reached anyone.

Eventually it transpired that the bordereau was in fact a fabrication procured by or had been hand written and delivered by an unpleasant and insufferable, Grade A1 shit, and serial liar, a French-born officer of Hungarian descent Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy (see pic) - who in turn proved to be a French traitor and a German spy and that his claim to his ancient Austro-Hungarian Title was bogus. He eventually fled to and died in England.

In his famous letter, Emile Zola, finished with the flourish ..."Let them dare, then, to bring me before a court of law and investigate in the full light of day!" ...which they did , he was sued successfully for libel and he had to escape like Esterhazy to England.

What effect all this has on preparing a case by Plod to prove a conspiracy to pervert the course of Justice (thoughts of raising charges for Cash for Coronets is firmly outta the window - NOBODY wants that ) remains to be seen. Lord Levy's claque (consisting solely of Sugar and his Rabbi currently) tcertainly have raised the spectre of anti-semitism, the reflexive action of any guilty Jew - although no-one is suggesting in any way that he pint sized Lord Levy is guilty of anything - apart maybe some dodgy singing at the Karaoke bar at the White Horse (Known apparently in the local argot as the Sloaney Pony) .

Lord Levy, or Mike to his many, many friends who are deluging the press, TV and airwaves with letters, speeches and declarations of support is a man of undoubted probity, integrity, honesty, indeed the TV chat shows are wall to wall with his rabbi. Mike has an easy, cheesy charm, and is well endowed with both charity and business acumen and why Truth Turner describes him in the way she does, and his actions is a mystery (well in our copy of said document - although we entertain doubts as to authroship because a woman like Truth wouldn't mispell certain gyneacological expressions that way). You naughty girl, you need a good spanking... and if what they say about the newly selected Labour candidate for a Northern constituency you have probably already had one. (The previous Labour candidate was beaten and quite coincidentally now runs a Jewish lobbying outfit, whilst hubby is off fighting the Fuzzy Wuzzies on their behalf.

A cynic might suggest however, that if anybody had wanted to scupper any possible legal proceedings, they couldn't have done a much better job in muddying the waters, putting the proverbial spanner in the mills of the law, sufficiently anyway to give the boneheads at the CPS cause for some thought. Notwithstanding the Attorney General (passé BAE bribery in Saudi) deciding that a decree of estoppel might be needed or as m'learned Civil lawyers at Fountain Court might say "non concedit venire contra factum proprium"

Meanwhile the industrious Mr McTernan is kept very, very busy organising the fast disappearing Labour vote in Scotland. We can only hope nothing serves to distract his effort and industry. Especially as it was a filthy Scotsman who set this particular hare running.

NB Bordereau Fr. A detailed memorandum, especially one that lists documents or accounts.

Monday, March 12, 2007

The UK employers organisation, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) speaking for 80% of the FTSE 100 and some 200,000 companies has kicked off National Science Week with a clear, unambiguous, easily understood policy objective..

UK NEEDS TO DOUBLE NEW SCIENCE GRADUATES OVER SEVEN YEARS OR SEE SKILLED JOBS DISAPPEAR

The UK needs to double the proportion of science and engineering graduates (currently only 12% 0r 24,000) leaving university by 2014 or see skilled jobs go overseas

The UK's world-leading position in industries like pharmaceuticals, aerospace (?) and bio-technology might be forced to relocate to areas with a ready supply of employees with these skills.

They identify 4 barriers to increasing the output of science graduates:

1. Dilapidated, under resourced teaching facilities - Poor science laboratories in schools - with one in four unsafe or inadequate according to the Royal Society of Chemistry, and four in ten basic and uninspiring. Their report in 2004 identified the need in the UK for £1.9 Bn with an additional £70m per annum for teaching materials, in order to raise all school laboratories to a good standard. ... don't hold your breath.

2. A shortage teachers with specialist knowledge to teach GCSE and A level 25% of secondary schools do not have a specialist physics teacher. See also "2004150 Mathematics and Science in Secondary Schools: The Deployment of Teachers and Support Staff to Deliver the Curriculum"DfES 22/1/2006 Key research priority - world class education workforce

3. A stripped-down curriculum, devoting too little time to science - only 20% of state schools offers separate GCSEs in physics, chemistry and biology - consequently even fewer advance to A level examinations.

4. Poor careers advice, coupled by failure to stimulate young people's interest in the well-paid (?) and cutting edge careers available in science and engineering.

In 2005 the Government pledged to spend £200million improving science facilities in schools but although the money has been allocated it remains unspent.

John Cridland, CBI Deputy Director-General, said today : "Britain has a world class science base and many world-beating companies but we must build on these strengths, not allow them to wither on the vine."

Sir John Cridland is talking insufferable bollocks here, the UK does NOT have a world class science base. Truly the UK has some ageing, astonishingly brilliant scientists, many of them from the Old Commonwealth. Scientists are as welcome in the Boardrooms of British industry as syphilis in a nunnery.

Let's just look at Sir John Cridlands career ...

He studied Indian and African history at Christ’s College Cambridge and joined the CBI in 1982. He was appointed Director of Human Resources Policy in 1995, negotiating the UK’s first National Minimum Wage, entry into the EU Social Chapter and the Employment Relations Act 1999. Previously he had been Director of Environmental Affairs and played a key role on lobbying for the Environment Act 1995.

He is also a member of the Low Pay Commission and the ACAS Council. He was awarded the CBE in the New Year Honours List 2006.

Martin Broughton the President of the CBI ? ... He joined BAT as a travelling auditor in 1971 and held a variety of financial positions before becoming finance adviser for Asia. He is also chairman of the British Horseracing Board.

Richard Lambert Director-General of the CBI ? History graduate from Balliol, Oxford, journalist.

Pic Future mathematicians ... accountants or ...getting ready for a job on the till at Tesco?

That money promised ...well this is what the prudent Chancellor was reported saying in the Guradian after his budget speech March 22nd 2006

Every advanced industrial country knows that falling behind in science and mathematics means falling behind in commerce and prosperity.

So the education secretary is announcing today a comprehensive programme for the recruitment, retraining, retention and reward of 3,000 science teachers; a new entitlement to study the full range of science subjects at GSCE level; and the funding of after school science clubs starting in 250 schools.

And to ensure investment is matched by performance we will benchmark science results, just as we now benchmark English and mathematics.

News of new science teachers ? School science club funding ? Benchmarking results ? Where ?

The Government published the March of Science and Innovation Framework 2004 -2014: Next Steps, which committed it to increase the proportion of science teachers with a specialism in chemistry from 24 percent to 31 percent by 2014. Progress ? Zero.

The CBI are 100% right in calling for an immediate doubling of science graduates in the next decade. This is a massive task, those graduates in 2014/15/16 are now just emabarking on their school careers... there is not a minute to waste. The whole project should be undertaken as a sort of national Marshall Plan...for it is nothing less. The survival of UK manufacturing is at stake ... we have at the most, 10 years.

However consider this first ...

The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is the pre-eminent engineering institution in the world. Established as a learned society in 1818, it has 80,000 members and provides a voice for civil engineering, continuing professional development and promoting best practice throughout the industry.

Tom Foulkes, MBA BSc CEng FICE FIMechE , ICE Director General, introduced the report The ‘State of the Nation 2003’ three years ago (01/07/2003) which the Press Release said, "Britain will become completely reliant upon energy sources supplied via pipelines from politically unstable countries thousands of miles away. The ‘State of the Nation 2003’ report highlights a potential 80% shortfall in meeting the country’s energy demands from current supplies by 2020, and points to the possibly cataclysmic effects of becoming reliant upon unsecured, imported fuel supplies."

Tom Foulkes is a military, civil, and mechanical engineer. He was educated at Clifton College, RMA Sandhurst, RMCS Shrivenham (BSc in Civil Engineering), Staff College, RCDS and the Open University (MBA).

Ford Motor CompanyPremier Automotive Group have after 12 months finally entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Aston Martin business. They first bought 75% of the company in 1987 and the remainder in 1993 ;

Headed personally by shy retiring, David Richards, chairman and chief executive of Prodrive ,although Prodrive are not involved in the deal , however they will still run the Aston Martin Racing team in international sports car series events, including the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Investment Banker John Sinders, an extravagant and flamboyant Aston Martin collector from Dallas, and a backer of Aston Martin Racing.

Investment Dar & Adeem Investment Co, 2 international investment companies headquartered in Kuwait Adeem managing director and chief executive officer is Mustafa E. Al-Saleh. His company were major promoters of the World Islamic Finance & Investment Conference just held in Kuwait, March 4th - 5th.

The transaction is said to value Aston Martin at £479 million ($925 million). As part of the transaction, Ford will retain a £40 million ($77 million) investment in Aston Martin.

This is what the BBC News is putting out worldwide as "putting ownership back in British hands".

Green enthusiast Prince Charles is seen getting out of his Aston Volante in the picture above which he specially ordered in BRG, with 432 bph Vantage engine, capable of almost 186mph, and with 0-60mph acceleration times under 5.0 seconds- in what became known as the Prince of Wales spec, including a modestly priced Linn Sondek sound system.

Amusingly The Evening Standard reported on 17.11.06 that Prince Charles has told aides to use bicycles as part of an environmentally friendly masterplan to make him the country's 'greenest' royal. A Clarence House spokesman said 'It is true that the prince has ordered two bicycles for staff to use on business in London, although this is by no means compulsory. "

Here is a jolly pic of Charlie Boy squiring the lovely, beautiful and virtuous Camilla on a sunny day at Hurlingham last year which Lord "papparazzi" Patel managed to snap , of the heir to the throne in his vintage Aston Martin V6 Vantage (only 80 were made) which mummy bought for him.